THE NEW YORKER thing with the girl, and of course Claire came back After that they sold the stone house. To a broker, I heard." "Oh," Isobel said. Absently she picked up an apple from a mound on the counter and looked into its glossy surface as though it were a mirror. "They're renovating a farmhouse now," Lynnie said. "It's much smaller. " "Too bad," Isobel said, putting down the apple. "Yes." "Was she pretty?" Isobel asked. "Who?" Lynnie said. "Ross's girl? N ot especially." "Ah," Isobel said, and Lynnie looked away, ashamed of herself. Isobel started to speak but didn't. She scanned the shelves again vaguely, then smiled over at Lynnie. "Y ou know what else is funny?" she said. "When I woke up this morning, I looked across the street. And I saw this woman going out the door of your old house, and just for an instant I thought, There's Lynnie. And then I thought, No, it can't be-that person's all grown up." F OR a long time after Isobel had left town, Lynnie would do what she could to avoid running into Ross or Claire; and eventually when she saw them it would seem to her not only that her feeling about them had undergone an alteration but that they themselves were different in some way. Over the years it became all too clear that this was true: their shine had been tar- nished by a slight fussiness-they had come to seem like people who were anxious about being rained on. Newcomers might have been aston- ished to learn that there was a time when people had paused in their deal- ings with one another to look as Ross walked down the street with Claire or the children. Recent arrivals to the town-additions to the faculty of the college, the businessmen and bankers who were now able to live in country homes and still work in their city of- fices from computer terminals-what was it they saw when Ross and Claire passed by? Fossil forms, Lynnie thought. Museum reproductions. It was the Claire and Ross of years ago who were vivid, living. A residual radiance clung to objects they'd han- dled and places where they'd spent time. The current Ross and Claire 33 _.:l.' '4 G\S '7 r . ß .1v .., /X " '-I ' "r;;, ,-. : -...". ,- --- - ---- ------ ..,. ---- " ---.... '-." << " lþ- J \ ,J- ....J'l b4 " , ,. _.; -t ..." .::";4: .l'- :..:- V :. .,.: . . lAW ...... ':t - - - - - - - -- t 1 - A --. ,.,......- DJI,= ,---- ;;.. ....' v " - ':'. .;. .. ,.,,.. ..... '" .... "'.... .to "> " . ".,'" ,->"' "<> ."... . t t 1 l' :+ -.. *':' "'" it" f: ,. , __ S A V\Ahe>t ÝÌ :ø ...... .. .... "King me!" . were lightless, their own aftermath. Once in a while, though-it hap- pened sometimes when she encountered one of them unexpectedly-Lynnie would see them as they had been. For an instant their sleeping power would flash, but then their dimmed present selves might greet Lynnie, with casual and distant politeness, and a breathtak- ing pain would cauterize the exqui- sitely reworked wound. I T is summer when Lynnie and Isobel first come upon Ross and Claire. Lynnie and Isobel live across the street from one another, but Isobel is older and has better things to do with her time than see Lynnie. And because Lynnie's mother works at the plant for unpredictable stretches, on unpredict- able shifts, Lynnie frequently must look after her younger brothers. Still, when Lynnie is free, she is often able to persuade Isobel to do something, par- ticularly in the summers, when Isobel is bored brainless . They take bicycle expeditions then, during those long summers, often along the old highway. The highway is silent, lined with birchwoods, and has several alluring and mysterious features-among them a dark, green wooden restaurant with screened win- dows, and a motel, slightly shabby, where there are always, puzzlingly, several cars parked. Leading from the highway is a wealth of dirt roads, on one of which Lynnie and Isobel find a wonderful house. The house is stone, and stands empty on a hill. Clouds float by it, making great black shadows swing over the sloping meadows below with their cows and barns and wildflowers. In- side, in the spreading coolness, the light flows as variously clear and shaded as water. Trees seem to crowd in the dim recesses. The house is just there, enclosing part of the world: the huge fireplace could be the site of gatherings that take place once ev- ery hundred, or once every thousand,